Sydney Morning Herald columnist

"We know the statistics - that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioural problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.'' - President Barack Obama, Father's Day speech, 2008.

Yes, we do know the statistics. But that hasn't stopped an avalanche of hate - and I use the word advisedly - being unleashed against Cory Bernardi for quoting and echoing the sentiments of Obama in his book The Conservative Revolution (Connor Court 2013).

The big whisper going around now about Bernardi is that he is gay. The preposterous logic goes like this: Bernardi hates gays, he is obsessed by the subject, which means he is probably a repressed, self-loathing homosexual.

Under fire: Cory Bernardi. Photo: Dominic Lorrimer

No less than a federal MP and Liberal backbencher, Warren Entsch, has promoted this absurdity. On Tuesday, he told Fairfax Media: ''He's obviously got an obsession with people that are gay. It worries me. You've really got to watch out for those that have these obsessions. He who protests the loudest …''

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Entsch himself is obviously gay if we apply his own tortured logic. Unlike Bernardi, he has long been obsessive about gays. For 10 years, he has campaigned against his own party's position on same-sex marriage and promoted a private member's bill in support of gay marriage (although he drew the line at supporting the Greens on the issue). The subject of gays caused him to go into party discipline meltdown and traduce the reputation of a colleague with smears, exaggeration and innuendo.

Let's look at the timeline of hate.

Monday: the first story that suggested Bernardi's book was controversial appeared, as night follows day, on the ABC. Within hours of the ABC report, and interview by Bernardi on ABC TV following up on that report, Bernardi's office in Adelaide was inundated by phone calls. ''The office was overwhelmed with calls,'' Bernardi told me. ''There was clearly an orchestrated campaign of abuse which was levelled at my staff.''

Tuesday: The phone and email campaign extended to Amazon, where hundreds of negative reviews of The Conservative Revolution were published by people who had not read the book. and the comments at the office became more personal. ''There were questions to my staff like 'Can you ask Cory how I should insert my tampon, as he wants to tell all women what to do?''' Bernardi said. "My female staffers were told things like, 'How can you work for such a bigoted c---', and 'You have betrayed the sisters by working for him, you treacherous bitch'. Some left recorded messages. It was clearly an orchestrated campaign.''

Wednesday: Entsch weighs in via Fairfax Media, insinuating Bernardi is a self-loathing homosexual and asking what Bernardi would think if a member of his family turned out to be gay: ''Would he advocate sterilisation?''

This is despicable, and there is a subtext to this. After the Coalition won government last year, Tony Abbott dropped Entsch from the position of chief whip. And Entsch is friendly with Malcolm Turnbull, who is openly contemptuous of Bernardi. Entsch even mentioned Turnbull in his attack on Bernardi, saying Turnbull had been raised by his single father and was not a lesser person for that.

Thursday: a reaction to the hate campaign, with a heavy flow of supportive calls and emails. ''Interestingly, the email feedback has been overwhelmingly positive,'' Bernardi said.

All week, Fairfax Media has published a string of negative reporting, commentary and remarks about Bernardi, yet in this coverage no one has even pretended to have read the book. If they had, they would see Bernardi quotes a plethora of studies and that it was a British Family Court judge, Sir Paul Coleridge, not Bernardi, who came up with the phrase that traditional families should be the ''gold standard'' as the best protector of children's welfare. Based on his Family Court experience, the judge said family breakdown was the root cause of most social ills and warns: ''What is a matter of private concern when it is on a small scale becomes a matter of public concern when it reaches epidemic proportions.''

In his book, Bernardi sums up his argument on families with this: ''Social policy should continue to advocate for the best possible social environment for children. More often than not, as studies have shown, that environment is a family with a child's married biological mother and father. Of course, there will always be exceptions to this - some traditional families fail miserably at childcare and some step-families do a wonderful job of raising children - but it should not deter society as a whole from encouraging its citizens to pursue the traditional family model.''

Not exactly rabid. The same cannot be said for the parade of bigotry over the past seven days - absurdly claiming to be in defence of tolerance.

Twitter: @Paul_Sheehan_

500 comments

Thanks very much for this Paul. Balanced and fair. It's amazing how we seem to be in the habit of responding to views and opinions we don't like with the exact behaviour we say we're objecting to.

Commenter

Andy

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

January 13, 2014, 6:40AM

Absolutely!

Commenter

femster

Location

sydney

Date and time

January 13, 2014, 7:05AM

Agreed, though its interesting that other 'balanced and fair' articles which dont paint the LNP in a rosy light are often denounced in these forums as 'leftist propaganda'

Commenter

Cl

Date and time

January 13, 2014, 7:09AM

Fair and balanced? Quoting Obama out of context is not fair and balanced. Neglecting to mention that it is Bernardi's views on abortion that triggered the vitriol from Australian women. Fair and balance?. Don't make me laugh.

Commenter

BT

Date and time

January 13, 2014, 7:11AM

Agreed, BT. This is not fair and balanced. Sheehan is playing political score-cards here. The politicians he has highlighted were not those who wrote the scathing reviews on Bernardi's book. The public did that. Sheehan is simply the tail wagging the dog.

Commenter

Jump

Date and time

January 13, 2014, 7:25AM

Bernardi is 100% RIGHT!!! The extreme bigots are once again out in force ready to pounce at a moment's notice to condemn us all into their political correctness. What if these so called women's-rights-to-their-bodies activists were somehow about to be aborted themselves and they had a mouth to speak... would they not be screaming like a terrible banshee as they face the abortionists' knives and vacuum pumps??!!!

Commenter

Abortion Industry Sucks

Date and time

January 13, 2014, 7:26AM

I'm really not sure if quoting a president's speech have any statistical inference. The only thing we can do is take his (Obama) word for it which again isn't statistics, it's merely trust.

Can you trust pollies of any parties?

Commenter

Gerson

Location

Sydney

Date and time

January 13, 2014, 7:27AM

The Greens & many other self labelled "progressives" go off their heads about whales & sharks being killed – but are totally opposed to any discussion of pro-life choices for the unborn child.

Amazing!

Commenter

not so progressive?

Date and time

January 13, 2014, 7:31AM

This current govt is a complete mad-bag of Tea-Party types. Not a level-headed, competent, responsible example of gevernance amongst them. Let's hope the polls continue to show the public's displeasure about having this far-right tripe thrust down their gullets on a daily basis. The sooner some more moderate Libs, like Turnbull and Entsch (or even a right-leaning Labor leader like Shorten) take over the better - I think most Australian's would welcome a little more moderation and maturity in parliament at the moment.....

Commenter

Bring back the Moderates

Location

Bra

Date and time

January 13, 2014, 7:33AM

This is not balanced as it has as it's core assumption that any comment or opinion against mr Bernardi is hate and not, itself, free speech. Get real Christian conservatives, if you are going to dish it, you better be prepared to take it also.